1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to an apparatus for recovering residual salt from the reduced uranium metal.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) researches and develops pyroprocessing process which is a technology that recovers valuable resources such as uranium from the spent fuel. The recovered resources are recycled into fuel for next-generation sodium fast reactors, resulting in increased uranium usage efficiency and a marked decrease in radiotoxicity and the amount of radioactive waste generated, thereby increasing the safety and economic efficiency.
The KAERI pyroprocessing starts from an electrolytic reduction process in which the spent oxide fuel is reduced into a metal with an electrochemical method. The metal formed in the electrolytic reduction process is used as a feed of an electrolytic refining process as the next process, to thereby selectively recover high purity uranium. The electrolytic reduction process and the electrolytic refining process, which are electrochemical processes, use molten salt as an electrolyte medium. The electrolytic reduction process uses molten lithium chloride (LiCl) salt with small amount of Li2O, and the electrolytic refining process uses eutectic salt of LiCl and potassium chloride (KCl). Thus, in order to increase the level of connectivity between the electrolytic reduction process and the electrolytic refining process, it is important to remove the residual LiCl from the metal reduced in the electrolytic reduction process to maintain the composition of LiCl—KCl salt in the electrolytic refining process.
To this end, the present inventors disclose an apparatus that quickly cools LiCl vapor below its melting point to form powder, thereby recovering pure LiCl from mixed molten salt or a uranium metal reduced in the electrolytic reduction process.